Product designer Jólan van der Wiel approached fashion designer Iris van Herpen with the idea to grow clothing using magnetic forces. To do this they manipulated a material made from iron filings mixed into resin.

“The technique still uses magnetism but with a new material that’s much more flexible and tactile, like a hairy skin that’s soft to touch,” van der Wiel told Dezeen. “The material moves with the body much better than what we’ve used previously.”

Before creating the dresses, van der Wiel experimented with the material to achieve the optimal flexible structure and dark pearlescent colour. Van Herpen then sketched out the shapes of the designs and made the cloth bases.

“The first dress we made was shaped like the moon,” said van Herpen. “With the second, I wanted the material to grow around the body more organically.” Each of the two garments took three weeks to construct.

“The original idea was to have a dress growing live during the show through magnetism… so people could see the birth of the dress, how the dress would grow,” van Herpen said, though this proved too complex and potentially unsafe for the models.